Have something to say?

Ready to be published? LXer is read by around 350,000 individuals each month, and is an excellent place for you to publish your ideas, thoughts, reviews, complaints, etc. Do you have something to say to the Linux community?

Splashtop for Ubuntu Delivers 10x Performance over VNC

For Ubuntu users, Splashtop Streamer offers a supercharged, high-performance alternative to Virtual Network Computing (VNC) and other remote desktop software. Due to its efficient protocol, algorithms and optimizations, Splashtop has been shown in performance benchmarks to deliver up to 15x higher video frame rates and up to 10x lower latency times than its competition. Splashtop sessions are secured with SSL and 256-bit AES encryption, allowing it to serve as a secure pipe between devices, in some cases allowing users to eliminate their need for separate VPN solutions.

November 28, 2012 – San Jose, CA – Splashtop Inc., the worldwide leader in cross-device computing, today announced the release of its remote desktop Streamer software (beta) for Ubuntu. Now users of Splashtop 2 client devices can connect to a remote computer running Ubuntu to use Linux applications and to access their data.

For Ubuntu users, Splashtop Streamer offers a supercharged, high-performance alternative to Virtual Network Computing (VNC) and other remote desktop software. Due to its efficient protocol, algorithms and optimizations, Splashtop has been shown in performance benchmarks to deliver up to 15x higher video frame rates and up to 10x lower latency times than its competition. Splashtop sessions are secured with SSL and 256-bit AES encryption, allowing it to serve as a secure pipe between devices, in some cases allowing users to eliminate their need for separate VPN solutions.

"Splashtop has been an active member of the Linux Foundation for several years now," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation. "With the company’s latest work on remote desktop streamer software for Linux, Splashtop is demonstrating its understanding of and support and collaboration with the Linux user community.”

"Splashtop's remote desktop software is an innovative product, and we welcome it into the Ubuntu Software Center," said Stephane Verdy, Product Manager at Canonical. "We believe that the Ubuntu community will not only embrace the product as users, but also combine it with other software to come up with creative mobile solutions for business and play."

Industry experts anticipate strong demand for the product from several groups, including 1) Linux system administrators, many of whom use Ubuntu to manage their networks, 2) Linux gamers, who are overwhelmingly passionate and tech-savvy computer users, and 3) general desktop and workstation users of Ubuntu who tend to own Android devices and other client platforms supported by Splashtop.

This new version of Splashtop Streamer enables users to remotely connect to an Ubuntu computer and do the following:

view and edit files remotely (no transferring or syncing)
run their favorite Linux programs
stream their music collection
watch videos at up to 30 frames per second with low latency
play graphics-intensive games
use input methods for typing characters in various languages
perform on-the-fly trans-coding of various video and audio formats

In addition, the Ubuntu version of Splashtop Streamer allows the fine-tuning of the video frame rate and setting of port numbers through manual editing of a configuration file, which is not available in the Mac or the Windows version of Splashtop Streamer.

"For a while now Linux users have been clamoring for a version of Splashtop that supports Ubuntu, so now we have delivered," said Mark Lee, founder and CEO of Splashtop. "We're giving the user a few ways to tweak the configuration files to stream at different frame rates, which we think Linux folks will appreciate."

To date, the Splashtop for Business product line, targeting the SMB and enterprise markets, and the Splashtop 2 consumer product line have empowered more than ten million users of mobile devices, ranging from tablets to smartphones, to remotely access their computers from anywhere to run their favorite applications and to view and edit files, watch HD movies and play graphic-intensive games.